The Once and Future Lorelai
by savvyliterate
Summary: What if you had one chance to fix the biggest mistake of your life? Lorelai Gilmore is about to get that chance.
1. November 5, 2006

_Author's note: Happy anniversary to our Ls! This is a story I've been sitting on for about 18 months now and have decided to expand it from a one-shot to a full story. It starts shortly after "The Great Stink" in season 7 and, well, you will see how things progress from there._

* * *

 _Chapter 1: November 5, 2006_

There was no reason ever to compare Stars Hollow with _Outlander_ , unless one was a member of the Black, White & Read's book club and happened to read the novel because it was Miss Patty's pick for the month. Actually, reading meant a six-week-long commentary on how hot Jamie was and an intricate breakdown of the sex scenes. Miss Patty just happened to lead that discussion in the middle of the diner, which turned Luke at least six shades of red before ordering the erstwhile book club out and back to the bookstore where it belonged.

Had things been different, Lorelai would have done dramatic readings and did her very best to tease Luke into wearing a kilt, all in the name of mortifying her fiancé. But things _were_ different, and she only heard about what happened secondhand through Babette while drinking subpar coffee and watching Christopher and G.G. play in the yard with Paul Anka.

"You should join the club," Babette said, patting Lorelai's knee when the conversation stilted. These days, that really didn't take long. "Get your mind off of things."

"I think I'll go for a walk," Lorelai replied, setting the coffee cup aside. She managed a smile for Babette, waved to Christopher and G.G., and ducked back in the house for her purse.

She had gone walking a lot in the days since the ultimatum, when a woman she didn't even recognize had driven to Boston and had done the one thing that would drive the love of her life away from her forever. Walking was the only thing that kept her reasonably sane as she gave in and decided to try a real relationship with Christopher. She wasn't going to get the man she really wanted, and it was her fault. Well, his as well, but still. She had been the one to fire the final bullet into the ashes of their engagement.

Why not settle for what she could actually have?

Part of her knew she needed to break it off with Christopher, but she just didn't think she had enough inner strength to give him that final shove. When she was around him, she was happy. Ish. More accurately, she was forgetting the chasm of pain that seemed to crack open every time Lorelai was alone and was confronted with all of her mistakes. So she made sure to surround herself with people, because then she could pretend to be the normal Lorelai. The more she pretended, the more she could avoid everything that she had lost. Hell, she was willing to put up with the town reeking of pickles just to avoid having to face Luke.

More signs that a long-term relationship with Chris was a bad idea were emerging with each day they spent as a couple. Sherry had written that she regretted leaving G.G. behind, and she urged Chris to bring her to France for a visit. He in turn had invited Lorelai to go with him. Running away to France sounded appealing. Too appealing.

But her problems would still be there when she got back, something that Rory had learned the hard way after sleeping with Dean two years earlier. There was no "getting out of jail free" cards in real life, no reboots. Lorelai's life was in shambles, and her attempts to pick up the pieces were feeble at best. It was a patchwork job that was fooling no one, except maybe Chris.

Lorelai wandered away from the center of town. She took care on her sojourns to avoid anywhere near the square. Anywhere that would put her in seeing-eye distance of a certain diner. Her heart just couldn't take it. So she went in the opposite direction, pacing up and down the sidewalks on the outskirts of Stars Hollow that seemed to escape Taylor Doose's meticulous eye. She speed-walked past the Twickham House, managing to keep the tears in check.

Not far past the house, a dirt trail caught her eye, and Lorelai paused. She'd lived in Stars Hollow for more than 20 years and had spent the past six months making regular circuits of the outskirts, and this was the first time she'd seen this particular path. Curious, she veered off the sidewalk.

The shaded trees cooled the air by a good 10 degrees, and Lorelai closed her eyes to enjoy the breeze as she walked. Her internal compass wasn't that bad, and she estimated she was wandering toward the Independence Inn property. Going there would be good for her soul, remembering when things had been so simple.

She would have to bring Rory here the next time she was home. Had things turned out the way she wanted, she would have run back to the diner and coaxed April to come exploring with her. But that was a thing of the past. Lorelai had well and truly ruined any chances she had of even interacting with Luke's daughter. Anna Nardini made it very clear that she didn't find Lorelai worthy of being around April, and if she knew what Lorelai had done with Christopher … a wave of nausea swept over her, and she pushed it away.

She emerged from the path into a clearing, a ring of circular stones in the center. It almost looked like someone intended to lay a campfire there. Lorelai had gained a little knowledge from Luke about the basics of camping. That first fall they dated, he had taken her up to the cabin his family had owned, and they had huddled together outside before a fire as she made s'mores and enticed him to eat one. He had done so, only mildly grumbling as she reminded him that eating small amounts of chocolate was healthy. He corrected her that it was actually dark chocolate, and their banter had culminated in him tumbling her onto the blanket and …

Lorelai blinked when her eyes watered, and she took a deep breath. No thinking about Luke. She couldn't do that. Right. Weird circle of stones. She squinted at them. They were spaced too far apart to be a fire circle.

She walked into the center of the circle and turned slowly around. Some sort mini-Stonehenge project? Rory had attempted that in the diner when she was 10, grabbing every single napkin holder and ketchup bottle and arranging them in a circle in one corner. She proceeded to give every customer a lecture about Stonehenge for the next three hours until Lorelai realized where she was and had rushed in to save her from Luke. She had expected him to be angry, but instead, he'd been amused.

"She's great," he had boasted as Rory gravely informed Kirk, Gypsy, and Taylor about Stonehenge. "She keeps Kirk outta my hair, and what she's got to say is really interesting. If there weren't child labor laws involved, I'd hire her to do this permanently."

Lorelai closed her eyes and willed away her memories once again. That was the whole problem. Trying to forget Luke was literally cutting away a third of her life and shoving it in a box in the attic, not to be opened until Christmas 2018. She could barely remember the date she had gone on with Chris a week earlier, but she remembered with crystal clarity every moment of her first date with Luke — from when she met him behind the diner to escape in the truck before everyone could notice to when he shyly asked if she wanted coffee and she had grabbed his shirt and pushed him against the door to kiss the daylights out of him.

She hugged herself. Sex. Oh, there was a barrel of worms right there. A couple of weeks ago, she had leaped back into that area for the first time since the night of the ultimatum, and it had been … muted. She knew herself, knew her body's responses, and that she was pretending again. It was like part of herself was standing behind a glass wall, watching the people move on the other side and barely feeling anything. She did and said what was expected and pretended at exactly the right moment to make Chris think that she had gotten something out of it.

Sex _had_ been good with Chris once upon a time. That time being in the pre-Luke era, when she hadn't known the depths to which she could actually _feel_. As the weeks went by, her desire for sex with Chris was diminishing to the point that during the pickle debacle, she begged off and claimed she was having her period.

"Oh honey," Miss Patty's voice echoed in her head. "Life is too short for bad sex."

Lorelai sighed. This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to herself, Rory, Chris, or G.G. It was time. She had given it a shot with Chris, and she just couldn't see him in her Stars Hollow world. Nor was she a fit for his Hartford one. She would tell him he was going to Paris alone, and she would finally figure out what to do next. Maybe one day in the remote future, Luke would actually work his way around to forgiving her. Maybe.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to miss Luke for one solid minute. Sixty seconds of love and memories and piles upon piles of regret. Then she took a deep breath, stepped out of the circle, and started her way home to face the future.

* * *

 _OK. Something was different._

Lorelai emerged from the path back onto the street, a few paces away from the Twickham House. She scanned the block, and everything _seemed_ normal. But there was a difference too. It was something in the air. It made her feel antsy, and before she realized what she was doing, Lorelai was making her way to the town square. Yes, it was the last place she was trying to avoid, but something in her gut said she had to check out the heart of Stars Hollow.

Maybe it was because she was finally making a decision, a _real_ decision to move on with her life. She would get herself sorted out before dating anyone. Four months was simply not enough time to recover from an intense 2-year relationship and engagement with the man she loved more than anyone else except her daughter. Hell, it had only been three weeks since the breakup that she even began dating Chris. It would involve the stickiest of emotions, but she refused to run away any longer. She wanted some semblance of her old life back. She owed it to Rory, she owed it to her friends, and most of all, she owed it to herself.

Lorelai was out of breath by the time she reached the square, carefully inspecting the buildings as she walked by them. They all appeared absolutely normal: the gazebo, the market, the dance studio, the bookstore, the bakery, Al's Pancake World, the diner … Her stomach knotted with fear when she realized where she was. No, no, she wasn't prepared to handle a cool glare from Luke, that mixture of indifference and fury he sent her way every time they had the unfortunate luck to run into each other in the days since the ultimatum.

Instinct had her glancing through the diner windows, hoping for one peek of him at work. A junkie needing her fix, she realized with great irony. But instead of coffee she craved, it was the angel who served the life-giving beverage. His back was to her, and he was wearing a different baseball cap. Not the black one he'd donned in the days since they ended things for good, but an old, old one. I thought I burned that one, Lorelai thought absently, so caught up in her own thoughts that she forgot to move before he turned and looked out the window, straight at her.

Lorelai sucked in a deep breath, bracing for whatever scathing look Luke was sure to send her way. Instead, he looked vaguely puzzled. Then he shook his head and turned back to take someone's order.

Well. That was weird. Puzzled was definitely higher up on the scale than pure and utter loathing. Lorelai frowned and took in the town once more. No, it wasn't her imagination. Something really was off, like everything was slightly out of tune. She knew the melody but was a couple notes behind. Maybe she needed more sleep. Maybe …

"Are you gonna stand there scaring away everyone or come in here and get some coffee?"

Lorelai yelped at the sound of Luke's voice, nearly tripping over her feet and running into the lamp post. He stood in the diner's doorway, eyebrows arched with half-amusement, half-annoyance. "What?" she squeaked.

Luke sighed. "I hate to say this, especially to you, but you look like you need some coffee. Are you gonna come in or just stand there until Taylor comes out and hounds you for loitering?"

"Coffee," Lorelai managed. "Definitely coffee." She sped toward the diner as if the hounds of hell were at her feet, or rather Taylor's OCD regarding Stars Hollow. She nearly collided with Luke as he took a step back to give her leeway. He shrugged and let the door close as Lorelai took a good look around the diner for the first time in months. It too seemed like something was off, and she bit her lip as she studied her home away from home. Suddenly, she felt large, familiar hands on her shoulders and found herself being propelled toward the stools at the counter.

"Sit down, you're gonna to scare everyone in here. Except maybe Kirk." Luke all but pushed Lorelai onto a stool, and she gripped the counter as he walked around it and pulled down a mug. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing! Nothing, I just went for a walk. You know, fresh air, sunshine, exercise. Toning up the muscles, but not in the Richard Simmons way. That would involve way too much aerobics, leg warmers and 80s hair, and there's a reason we're no longer in the 80s."

Luke sighed and placed the mug in front of her, pouring the coffee that she craved. "Shouldn't be giving this to you at all," he muttered.

No, Lorelai agreed, you shouldn't be. But you are. She pulled the mug to her and inhaled deeply.

"At least you haven't broken your leg like the time you tried yoga," Luke groused.

"Well, walking is safer. One foot in front of the other. I could take up running."

"I hope your health insurance is paid up before you do that."

"Rude!" Lorelai sniffed, relieved that they were bantering. If they were bantering, then maybe, just maybe Luke had figured out how to forgive her. Her heart soared, and she took a sip of coffee. She closed her eyes and hummed with pleasure, then took another sip. She opened her eyes in time to see Luke staring at her, a dark and intense in his eyes that she recognized. He quickly startled and turned away, grabbing an order as Cesar pushed it through the window. Her toes curled. He once confessed that watching her drink coffee was highly erotic for him, and it served to explain some of the times he abruptly pulled her into the storeroom and kissed her within an inch of her life. If she was turning him on, it meant he wasn't repulsed by her presence.

"So," Lorelai asked casually, absently picking up the menu she knew by heart. "How's April?"

"Huh?" Luke turned back to her and gave her another of those puzzled looks. "Who's April?"

Lorelai laughed. "Who's April? OK, Jerry Seinfeld, everyone knows she's your …" Her voice trailed away as she stared at the menu in her hands, one she hadn't seen in nearly four years. "What happened to your new menus?"

"What new menus?"

"The ones Nicole talked you into doing."

Luke just stared at her for a long moment. Then he took her coffee away.

"Hey!"

"I was wrong. You don't need this. You need a shrink."

"Hello pot, meet kettle!" Lorelai shot back and lunged for the coffee mug. Luke set it out of reach. As she flailed for it, she caught sight of the walls. The walls she had painted after talking Luke into doing so, then accidentally skipped out on it thanks to Christopher. Everything looked the way it was the year that Rory started Chilton, the year their lives began to change as she dated Max. For the first time, Lorelai studied Luke closely. He hadn't changed that much in the past few years, but she knew him so well that she recognized the subtle signs of aging that happened thanks to trying to raise Jess and deal with April. Those were all gone. He looked the same as he did when Rory started high school.

She found herself staring at her hands, then gasped. The tan line on her ring finger from where she had worn Luke's ring for a year was gone. It looked like nothing had ever rested there. The tiny scar she'd gotten at the base of her thumb while making costumes for the Festival of Living Art during Rory's first year in Yale was also gone.

"Luke," Lorelai asked a bit shakily, "what's today's date?"

"Forget to look at a calendar this morning?"

"Just tell me!"

Luke rolled his eyes and snagged a newspaper from the far side of the counter where a customer had left it. "Here, see for yourself."

Lorelai shook out the paper and studied the masthead, dropping the paper in shock. "No, it can't be! That just doesn't happen! This can't be real! Is this real?" She gestured at the paper.

He leaned on the counter. "You see, when mommy paper and daddy ink have a date inside of a printing press …"

" _Luke_." Actually, that hadn't been half bad.

Lorelai's gaze fell to the paper, to the masthead that read _October 11, 2000_ , roughly a week after Rory had started Chilton. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt the universe shift, then click, and she knew she was in deep trouble.


	2. October 11, 2000

_Chapter 2: October 11, 2000_

The first thing Lorelai did after flinging a couple of dollars in Luke's direction for the coffee was run to the library and find everything she could on time travel. There was the _Outlander_ series, and she grabbed every book. Next was _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ , _A Wrinkle in Time, The Time Machine,_ and a few VHS tapes of _Doctor Who_. She already had the _Back to the Future_ trilogy. Juggling everything, she headed and spent the afternoon reading through as much of _Outlander_ as she could.

OK, Jamie was hot. Not as hot as Luke, but Lorelai was biased.

She had switched to watching _Doctor Who_ while browsing _The Time Machine_ when Rory came home from school, calling out a cheerful greeting and drawing up short when she saw what her mother was watching.

"Isn't that British?" Rory asked.

"Uh huh," Lorelai said absently.

"You said the only British TV you'd ever watch was required to have the words 'Monty Python,' 'Danger Mouse,' or 'AbFab' in the title."

"I'm catching up on the classics, kid," Lorelai defended herself. She gestured to the TV where the Doctor paraded around wearing a long multicolored scarf that she kind of wanted for herself. "Broaden the horizons, isn't this the education your grandparents are paying for?"

"Yes, but I don't think Chilton has a classic sci-fi course," Rory said, sitting gingerly on the couch. She blinked at the book in her mother's hands. "Mom, since when did you get an interest in H.G. Wells?"

"I've always had an interest in H.G. Wells."

Rory narrowed her eyes. "The last time I mentioned him, you said he created a very good ice cream sandwich. Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Lorelai patted Rory's arm and admired just how _young_ her daughter was. It'd been so long since she'd seen Rory with her baby face and her long hair and her neat-as-a-pin Chilton uniform. She hadn't realized until that moment just how much she missed seeing Rory this innocent. Before Jess, before sleeping with Dean, before Logan, before the rift, before … everything. "How was school?"

As Rory launched into the latest round of Paris making her day a living hell, Lorelai set the book aside and picked up the copy of _People_ with that week's date on it. Everything she had checked, from her Filofax to the wall calendar to every publication on the newsstand, firmly placed her in October 2000, just before Rory's 16th birthday. When she'd gotten up that morning, it had been November 2006. She couldn't begin to figure out what happened, other than walking into that strange stone circle.

Lorelai's gaze settled on the bookmarked copy of _Outlander_ , her stomach filling with dread.

* * *

It was strange being back in the Independence Inn, literally picking up where life had dropped her off so long ago. It was odd to see Sookie and Jackson in their pre-relationship bickering that was code for flirting, something Lorelai abruptly recognized that she and Luke constantly did as well. Michel was still Michel, and that was a relief. Lorelai considered getting the inn inspected more, especially the kitchen. They were two and a half years away from the fire that changed everything, but still …

When she had a break in her duties, Lorelai headed for the lake. She found the path that took her back to the stone circle. It was still there, looking the same as it did when she stumbled it upon it a day earlier and six years later. She frowned at it and thought of what she'd gleamed from _Outlander_. Humans had dreamed of time travel for centuries, but it had to be based in some sort of truth, right? OK, it was really far out there, or Lorelai was in some bizarre dream. She stared down at her arm, at the tiny row of bruises where she had repeatedly pinched herself the night before. Nope, still there, still hurt. This wasn't a dream.

She warily circled the stones. If she stepped through them again, would she be back in 2006? Somewhere else? God forbid she land back in the 1800s before indoor plumbing and coffee makers, that would be a nightmare. Why had she gone back in time? It made no sense to relive her life again, watching disaster after disaster fall into place once more. Rachel, Max, Nicole, Jason, April, the rift with Rory, the ultimatum with Luke, all those fights with her parents. Everything circled Lorelai's mind as she circled the stones.

Was she supposed to fix those things?

Lorelai hugged herself and stared at the sun, the rays peeking through the dense foliage. The only person she could think to ask about this was Liz, Luke's sister. It seemed like the sort of thing she would be familiar with. But at this point in time, Lorelai wasn't supposed to know her. They were a year from Jess even being in the picture at all, when he landed on Luke's doorstep and he had to figure out how to be a guardian at warp speed.

 _Oh God, Luke._

For the first time since fleeing the diner the day before, she thought of their failed relationship in the future. How could she cope with being desperately in love with someone she wasn't meant to have for another four years? She laughed a bit bitterly, knowing now how Luke had felt on his end. Now she saw _him_ all too clearly. How had she missed the signs? They'd been there when she and Rory were in the diner that morning: the subtle flirting, the looks he tried to hide behind a layer of gruffness. She knew all his tells now, and all she wanted to do was grab a fistful of flannel and kiss him senseless in front of the entire town.

She could try going back through the stones. She could go back to 2006. But what was waiting for her there? A broken everything with Luke. Her not-quite whole relationship with Rory, who hadn't been exactly thrilled that Lorelai had made the leap from Luke straight to Christopher. A half-hearted attempt to take what she could get with Christopher and G.G., and she had been planning to sever that. Her shattered relationship with the town that she loved, because she had avoided them and they had rallied behind Luke with this breakup.

Lorelai nearly didn't hear the soft crunch of dirt as someone walked down the path, and she jerked around in time to see Patty emerge into the clearing.

"Oof," Patty huffed as she made her way toward Lorelai. "Been a long time since I've made that hike."

"Miss Patty?"

Patty reached Lorelai's side, holding up a hand as she caught her breath. She patted Lorelai's arm. "I figured you would come back out here. I did the same thing when it happened to me. It's a bit overwhelming to go through it alone."

"I'm sorry?"

"The stones!" Patty nodded to the stones. "You've been through the stones."

Lorelai's knees went weak with relief. Hello, handy exposition. "You know of these?"

Patty smiled. "Oh, sweetie, every woman born in Stars Hollow knows of the stones. It's our secret, you know. You weren't born here, but you're one of us. The stones recognized you."

Lorelai nodded slowly. "Right."

"You don't believe me."

"Considering that I'm currently doing an excellent impression of Marty McFly without the cool hoverboard, I figure you know what you're talking about."

"Come, walk with me. There's a place to sit by the lake." Patty led Lorelai back down the path toward the water. "I saw you at Luke's yesterday, asking him about people he didn't know, looking around like something's missing. That's when I knew it happened for you." She chuckled. "How far back did you leap?"

They settled themselves on a large, flat stone overlooking the lake. "A little over six years," Lorelai admitted. "It was November 2006."

"Ah. Quite a bit further back than I did. Just 25 months on my end. I fixed a very bad situation with Taylor. It's not worth repeating, let's just say some things are just never meant to be." Patty gave her a bright smile, but pain briefly flashed in her eyes.

Questions burned on the tip of Lorelai's tongue, and she wanted to know exactly what had happened between Patty and Taylor. But before she could ask, Patty continued and Lorelai promptly forgot everything but the words that came next.

"The stones are old, old magic, and they have been here since the town was settled in the 1700s. They say a young woman had lost her lover in the Battle of Yorktown, and she created the stones so she could go back in time and prevent him from going to Virginia. When she saved him and they married, she blessed the stones so they could be used by any woman that claimed Stars Hollow as their true home, so they could get a second chance to fix something in their lives.

Patty leaned forward. "Here's the thing about the stones. When you go back in time, you carry a large amount of foreknowledge. The bigger the leap, the more you know. But you're not meant to change everything about your life, nor the entire world. That's abusing the magic, and it could have serious repercussions on everyone who's ever used the stones. You've been sent back to fix one thing, one crucial event in your life." Patty nodded at Lorelai's pale face. "You already know what it is, don't you?"

Lorelai absently rubbed the place where her engagement ring once rested. "I've a pretty good idea. Will I get sent back if I go through the stones again? Or somewhere else? I really don't want to be stuck in a pre-coffee Stars Hollow."

Patty chuckled. "No. It's a one-way trip. You have the chance to do something in your life over and send it down a different path. Here's the thing, Lorelai, it may not be any better than the life you left behind."

"It couldn't possibly be any worse," she whispered.

"Well, then, figure out what needs fixing and do it." Patty patted Lorelai's arm one more time. "I've got to be getting back. I've got a class of 4-year-olds waiting for me, and I have a limited attention span between nap time and _Blue's Clues_ to get them to at least listen to the Nutcracker Suite."

Lorelai watched as Patty headed back toward town. When she was gone, she slid off the rock and wandered back to the clearing. Even though it was supposedly safe, she stood just on the outside of the stone ring and let Patty's words replay in her mind. She had one chance to fix something. She sifted back through her memories, picking out key moments from Rory's first year at Chilton.

It was 2000. October 2000, before Rory's 16th birthday. Max Medina wanted to date her, but she couldn't quite remember if it she had done that initial coffee date with him yet or not. April was seven and a half years old. Her parents had just re-entered her life. She could change things, steer them all down a new path. OK, so that went against what the _Doctor Who_ tapes had said, but there was _Back to the Future_ and that was a pretty good role model. There were fixed events, this much she understood, but maybe she'd been flung back so far because there were things that weren't fixed.

Lorelai stared hard at the stones, then spun on her heel, bidding good-bye to the future she didn't want. She had foreknowledge and she was going to use it. There was no way she could prevent something as big as 9/11, her gut knew that. But she could change her life and Luke's and Rory's.

* * *

"It must be nice to have extended lunch breaks," Michel drawled as Lorelai walked across the Independence Inn's lobby.

She ignored him. "I'm going to be spending time in my office."

"Oh, yippie skippie. I get to be out here all by myself."

Lorelai motioned to where Grella was playing. "You have Grella."

"Yes. Grella." Michel rolled his eyes.

Locking herself in her office, Lorelai drafted a list regarding the future and what she knew would happen to the people she loved. There was April. Dean, Jess, Logan. Her parents' separation. Max, Christopher, and Jason. She already knew that Max, Christopher, and Jason would be on the list of things that wouldn't happen. Her physical self was back in 2000, but her heart was in 2006 and there was no way she could go back to the denial she'd lived in before Liz's wedding. Part of her wanted to change everything, but she knew that it probably wouldn't result in the outcome she wanted. Preventing Rory from dating Dean wouldn't change anything except to drive a wedge between her and her daughter. There were certain situations she would know how to handle better, such as with Jess, and that would help things a lot. The same thing with her parents. Preventing her father from retiring would make him only more and more miserable.

And then there was _them_.

Lorelai glanced at her purse, which had come into the past with her. Everything she needed for day-to-day life in 2006 was in there: her updated Filofax, her wallet, a few novels, random snacks, makeup, and various odds and ends. She pulled out her wallet and then a battered picture tucked behind her driver's license. She knew Chris wouldn't riffle through her wallet without permission, and it was safe to hide that one picture there. It was the only thing that hadn't gone in the Luke boxes.

She traced her finger around the image of her and Luke dancing at Liz's wedding. How had she not seen the adoration from him before? Luke was staring down at her like he'd won the lottery and been given every wish he'd ever asked for at the same time. She gazed up at him in pure and utter wonder, just recognizing what he felt for her and what she did in return. Lorelai wiped away a tear and kissed the photo before tucking it back where it belonged and knew exactly what one thing she was going to change. The one thing that went horribly wrong that she was going to do over again and get right.

Lorelai circled April's name at the top of her list. Helping Luke to find his daughter years earlier would help both of them immensely. He wouldn't get back all those lost years, but he would regain a good bit of them. She smiled at the vision of him with a tiny April.

She knew the risks she was taking. She was possibly killing any chance of a relationship with Luke in this timeline. But she wasn't going to change her mind. If the situation was reversed, she knew he would do whatever it took to ensure that she and Rory were together. She loved him, and because she loved him, she was going to get him his daughter back.

The how part … that would be tricky.

* * *

She was being strange again.

Granted, "Lorelai Gilmore" and "being strange" were things Luke constantly associated with each other. Every time her mouth opened, something new or weird came spilling out. Like a couple days earlier when she stared at him like she'd seen a ghost then proceeded to have a heart attack over a newspaper.

But something about Lorelai's strangeness was extra strange, and Luke couldn't quite put his finger on it. She even looked different: drawn and tired. If anything, she seemed to have lost weight overnight, and that alarmed him. It made him want to serve her half the menu then send her and Rory home with all his leftovers, because he knew damn well a small child could put Lorelai's cooking skills to shame.

Then there was the way she kept looking at him, as if she could see straight into his soul. They were friends, and they casually flirted, but she had never given him a look quite like that one. She stared at him like she knew every inch of his body, from the bald spot he did his best to hide at all costs to the appendectomy scar he got when he was eight. Something told him if she stripped him bare, she would know every single pleasure spot on his body and a few that he didn't even know existed.

And there went his imagination again. Luke cast his eyes to the ceiling, willing his unruly body to simmer down. Friends weren't supposed to have sexual fantasies about their friends, especially while standing in the middle of a crowded diner.

But since fate liked to make an endless joke out of him, Lorelai came breezing into the diner at the very moment he thought he could come out from behind the counter without embarrassing himself. She still looked lost, like she had misplaced something. Usually, that misplaced something was Rory.

"She's not here yet," he said, referring to Rory.

Lorelai just hovered by the door and nodded.

When she didn't move, Luke sighed. "You realize you're currently being a fire hazard."

"I just-" For the first time in the years he'd known her, words seemed to fail her. She almost looked afraid, like he was going to grab her by the scruff of the neck and boot her out the door. Yes, there were times he was sorely tempted to do that, especially during the two years she called him Duke. But even if he had, she'd just saunter right back inside, armed with a witty retort.

Luke held up an empty coffee mug by the handle and dangled it from his thumb and index finger. Lorelai immediately made for the counter, sliding onto the stool next to the register.

"Are you implying I'm Pavlov's dog when it comes to coffee?"

"It worked." He held the now-filled cup just out of her reach. "How many today?"

"Not enough."

"I'm not sending you to an early grave."

"I'm sure Emily Gilmore is going to do that for you. Gimme." Lorelai started to lunge for the coffee, then shrank back, as if she expected him to yell at her.

He placed the mug before her. "You're behaving weird, even for you."

"I suppose I am."

Luke turned at the sound of Cesar pushing an order through the slot, then back to Lorelai. "Did I piss you off?"

Lorelai choked on her sip of coffee. It took her precious moments for her to swallow, then breathe. "No! _You_ haven't done anything wrong."

The way she emphasized the _you_ made him think that he _had_ done something wrong. Luke racked his brain as he delivered one order, then bussed two tables. He couldn't think of anything outside of their normal banter that would cause her to act almost scared of him, like he would start yelling if she breathed at him harshly. It was something he was deeply uncomfortable with. His father had drilled respect for women into him from early childhood, and he was bound and determined not to be one of those jackasses that forced himself on a woman that didn't want him.

He decided to chalk it up to some strange Lorelai-ness when the door blew open, the wind ushering in a heap of bags that vaguely resembled his sister.

"A little help, please?" Liz's muffled voice came from behind the bags, and Luke removed enough to expose her face.

"What the hell is all of this?" He peered down into one of the bags to see it was nearly full of zucchini

"Co-op delivery." Liz dumped the rest of the bags on the closest empty table.

"I told you not to do those in here anymore."

Liz ignored him like every other time he asked her to exercise common courtesy and not use the diner as a vegetable drop-off. She took the zucchini from him. "You know how Taylor gets when I do them in the town square. He always yells at me about needing a permit, then won't give me one because it's "competition" for the overpriced stuff he stocks." Liz gave him quick air quotes as he spoke, then started to sort bags. "Where do you want yours?"

"I'll take them." Luke found the three bags with the diner's name on them and hefted them into his arms.

Liz glanced around the room and spotted Lorelai. "Oh hey! I've got that jam Sookie wanted. Three jars, right?" She reached for a bag, then froze. "Lorelai?"

Luke turned toward the counter to see Lorelai had spun around on her stool to face them. All the color had drained from her face, and she looked about five seconds away from passing out. He abandoned the bags, weaving through the tables to grab her arms before she toppled off the stool. Her muscles trembled beneath his hold, and her eyes had gone glassy with shock.

"Are you sick?" Liz started rummaging through her bags. "I've got some tea that should help if it's the flu."

"It's too early for the flu," Andrew called out from one of the tables.

"Maybe she needs some iron or potassium," Babette suggested from the table she shared with Patty. "Luke, you should give Lorelai a banana."

"Yes," Patty replied, eyes sparkling. "He should definitely give her _a banana_."

"Miss Patty," Luke hissed and prayed to every deity there was that he was glaring and not blushing.

"Bananas are very good for you," Patty continued.

"No, no!" Lorelai seemed to return to her senses, and he hastily let his hands drop. She laughed, something hollow and false that Luke knew was a cover for whatever was really going on with her. "I just didn't expect to see you."

"I told you yesterday morning I'd be by today," Liz replied.

"I forgot," Lorelai admitted.

Not forgot, Luke thought as he retreated back to being an observer. Something else entirely. Because Liz and Lorelai had talked at breakfast hours before she'd come rushing back into the dinner looking for a newspaper. Hours before she started acting like he was about to throw her over his shoulder and haul her off either to scold her or … _give her a banana._ Probably both.

The worst thing about it was he had seen it before.

Patty got up from her seat, and Luke started to sort through his order pad for her ticket. But instead of going to the register, she moved to where Liz was sorting vegetables. She leaned in close, and the two started whispering about something. Luke did not consider himself a nosy man by nature, but he was damn sure that the something had to do with Lorelai's weird behavior, especially since Patty was gesturing toward Lorelai.

So he returned his focus to her. Lorelai was hunched over her coffee, and he found himself smiling. Her face was exactly like Rory's when she was trying to puzzle out something complex. He opened his mouth to ask her about it, but then Liz abandoned her bags and wove around the tables to Lorelai's side.

"Hey!" Liz gave Lorelai her sunniest smile. "You've got a few minutes to chat?"

Lorelai managed a wan smile. "Sure."

"Great!" Liz waggled her fingers at Luke. "Can I borrow your place, bro? We'll be up there 15 minutes, tops."

He dug out his keys and tossed them to her, frantically trying to remember if he had scooped up his dirty laundry before heading downstairs that morning. Liz smirked, and he scowled at her.

"I'll make sure your tightie whites aren't where she can see them," Liz murmured _sotto voce_ as she passed him, and Luke glared after her. Sisters.

The urge to follow them upstairs and press his ear to the door was strong, because he knew that whatever they were discussing, it would involve whatever was going on with Lorelai. Part of him yearned to know what was going on in a way that seriously annoyed him. He had no right to know what was going on in Lorelai's life other than when it crossed his own, usually with a plate of food in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. His mind started to wander down that dangerous road of "what if?" Maybe she was sick. That idea shook him to the core.

"Luke?"

Kirk's voice pulled him back to reality, one that included Kirk standing before him wearing a scarecrow's outfit. "I was wondering, how many ears of corn do you have in the back? Taylor won't let me have any from the store, but I need to complete my Scarecrow costume for Halloween."

Luke winged an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not looking for a brain?"

Kirk sniffed. "Don't insult my ability to prepare a screen-accurate costume. My brains are right here." He brandished a bowl of cooked spaghetti, sans sauce.

" _Is_ that screen accurate?" It had been years since Luke was forced to watch Wizard of Oz reruns on TV with his mom and sister.

"I'm sure it is in some universe," Kirk informed him, then turned to go to a table. His feet tangled in the straw sticking out of the legs of his pants, and he pitched forward. The bowl of spaghetti went flying. The pasta wound up covering half the diner, and the bowl landed upside down on Gypsy's head.

"Hey!" Gypsy yelled.

Luke glared at Kirk, then headed into the kitchen to get a broom.


	3. The Great Time Warp

_Author's note: In the original series, Rory's first kiss with Dean takes place after her 16th birthday. For the sake of this story, and because the timeline is changed anyhow, it happened before Rory's birthday._

* * *

 _Chapter 3: The Great Time Warp_

Time travel, Lorelai decided, was the hardest thing to deal with ever. Forget pregnancy and giving birth. That was straightforward, and there were good drugs. No, time traveling was like walking into an dynamite-ladened minefield and hoping that you just didn't just accidentally explode your own future in the process.

Thanks to her talk with Patty, she knew the one thing she wanted to change. But as her day had gone on, she found herself wanting to clamp her mouth shut every time it opened.

There were things that the original past Lorelai would have known at the time that had long since fled her own short-term memory. Hours after the talk with Patty, Rory had come home from school late. It had taken near panic for Lorelai to remember that there had been a Franklin meeting.

Then as they ate dinner, Lorelai very nearly asked about Dean.

"So how's …," she had started to ask, but a crucial part of her memories suddenly flew back to the forefront of her mind in the nick of time. "Lane?" she managed to finish before completely shooting herself in the foot.

It was the week before Rory's 16th birthday, which mean technically Lorelai didn't know about Dean. Well, she _did_ know about Dean, but Rory thought she didn't. What if mentioning Dean too soon changed everything? What if she couldn't reunite Luke and April because she flubbed?

Then there was her own schoolwork. Lorelai spent a good hour trying to remember where she was at in her college education. She nearly asked Rory for help, but that would have tipped her off in a huge way. She settled for poring through her Filofax, scribbling down notes and reminders to help her navigate through her new-old life, and hoped she could wing her way through the next class enough to play catchup.

It was strange to go to bed in her room in the pre-renovation days, but at the same time it was immensely comforting. She had shared that version of her room with only one man, and this time she was going to keep it that way. Maybe. Who knew? It always bothered Lorelai on some level that she was sharing the sanctuary she and Luke had created for themselves with Chris, and in the months after the engagement ended, she had changed a few things around. But she never quite shook off the feeling that she was sleeping in her room with the wrong man.

Her old room felt right in every way. It was comfortably cluttered, and the quilt made of Rory's baby clothes had its place of pride on the bed. Luke had loved the quilt as well, especially once she told him the history behind it. But it had started to grow fragile by the time they were engaged, so he had found her an antique quilt rack and left it at the foot of the bed so the quilt could hang there.

On Day 3 of The Great Time Warp, as she dubbed it, the eerie deja vu wasn't going away. It felt like it was getting worse. Every step she took through the Independence Inn, she kept remembering the fire and the guilt. Everyone had said it was an accident, but even two years into the Dragonfly's operation, she felt like it was her fault. The Dragonfly Inn, the best thing she had ever done other than having Rory, was still a ramshackle abandoned building owned by Fran. It would be another two and a half years before Fran would die and she and Sookie would scrape together everything they had to open it.

Unable to handle the memories, Lorelai went to the diner. Big mistake. If the memories had been bad at the inn, they were six times worse at Luke's. She stared at him like a plate of cupcakes had been placed before her, except for the cruel fact that a wall of plexiglass surrounded them. Part of her expected him to turn on her, to yell at her for what she had done with Chris and to get the hell out of his life permanently.

Then Liz had walked in and what remained of Lorelai's world completely tumbled off its axis and landed somewhere out by Pluto.

Oh yeah, Pluto was still a planet.

Lorelai vowed then and there never to watch another performance of _Rocky Horror Picture Show_. There was no way she was doing the time warp again.

Her brain had shut down in self-preservation by the time Liz had ushered her up the stairs and into Luke's apartment. She jolted at the appearance. Pre-renovation for him. Pre-Jess. Back when he still had his old queen-sized bed, which had accidentally been destroyed during the renovations to the apartment when Rory was a junior at Chilton. Most of it was comfortably the same, and Lorelai found herself sitting on the couch clutching her coffee mug. She did her very best to ignore the fact that she and Luke had done just about every sex act imaginable on most of the furniture in the place. The couch, especially, had been home to quite a few memorable moments.

Liz plopped into the chair and studied Lorelai for a moment as she collected herself.

"I take it you forgot our kids were having pizza tonight," she said.

"Um," came Lorelai's very eloquent reply.

Liz smirked. "They're not going out for pizza. I was just testing ya." She leaned forward. "You're not supposed to know me right now, are you?"

"I don't suppose you'll accept the fact I've been hit in the head with a cartoon anvil, will you?"

Liz's smirk gentled into an all-knowing smile. "You've been through the stones."

Lorelai nearly dropped her mug.

Liz laughed. "It's OK, that's how I felt at first. Except when I went back, I also went back to a time when Jess was still in diapers. I wasn't looking forward to potty training him again. I admit, this time around, I guilted Luke into taking on the bulk of that one."

"Luke … potty trained … Jess?" Now her mind really _was_ broken.

Liz smirked. "Oh yeah."

"I have so many questions." Lorelai worried her lip, then stepped off the cliff in a way that would make Wile E. Coyote proud. "Am I allowed to ask them?"

Liz waved a hand. "Sure."

"This won't mess anything with the space-time continuum thingy?"

Liz laughed. "Do you know the thing you want to change?"

With absolute cold, for once unwavering certainty. "Yes."

"Then we're good. Besides, we're establishing a base here. Maybe I should tell you where I came from first." Liz frowned. "Things between me and Jess had been rough for years, and he'd come to Stars Hollow for a time. Eventually he left here, but then he came back. So did I, for my 20th high school reunion."

Lorelai froze, heart hammering. Something in her face must have shown, because Liz winged an eyebrow. "Our timelines overlap here, didn't they?"

Lorelai nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, they did."

"Well, I went for a walk. I was feeling a bit melancholy. I was interested in this guy, T.J., but I wasn't sure if he liked me back, y'know? And then there was Jess, and I just wanted it to be different for us. So, I went for a walk, found the stones. Thought they were pretty, but felt this pull, like I was meant to go through them. And I did. I walked back to Stars Hollow … and it was completely different. Well, not that much different because it was Stars Hollow, but still different."

"Yeah, I get that." That first walk back after she emerged from the stones felt like she'd been strolling through a documentary set not-so-far in the past, which may or may not be directed by Ken Burns. Stars Hollow should be Ken Burns-worthy.

"And there was my dad, sweeping the front stoop. I saw my dad, Lorelai, and I started crying. He took me inside, and it wasn't the diner. It was the hardware store. And there was Luke at the counter with Jess, who was just a couple years old. I cried and I cried and Dad asked me what was wrong, but I wasn't able to tell him. I think he knew. I don't know how he knew, but he did. He told Luke to watch Jess and took me to see Miss Patty. Patty told me everything, and now I'm telling you."

"Does Luke know?"

Liz shook her head. "Nah. I think he suspected something weird was going on, but he never asked. Jess doesn't know either. He doesn't even remember when we lived in New York. I remember, because we had come back from the city right after Jimmy left us to get back on our feet. We came back right around the time you and Rory moved here."

Wow. "So in this timeline, I've known you since 1986?"

"Yeah. I got a job working at the inn for awhile, until my dad got too sick to take care of himself. I had to quit to take care of him, because Luke was working nearly 24-7 to make sure we didn't lose the hardware store. Take it that's different," Liz said at the surprise in Lorelai's eyes.

"I've only known you a couple of years in my timeline, in 2006. Luke and I didn't really meet until I moved into my house. I couldn't afford much until then. But that was in 1996. How are we …"

Liz cut her off. "You two dated?"

Lorelai absently danced her fingers over the spot where his ring once rested. "We were engaged."

Liz grinned. "Not surprised. When I came from, you two were dancing around each other like fireflies around a bug zapper. I always felt it was a matter of time. I had a feeling about you then. I still have a feeling about the two of you." She leaned forward to lay a hand on Lorelai's knee. "You came back for him, didn't you?"

She nodded. "Luke has a daughter."

Liz blinked twice, then again. "Wow."

"Yeah. Wow." Lorelai decided it was better not to elaborate on the circumstances about how she found out about April in the first place. That still stung. She told Liz the rest, how Anna had April and decided not to tell Luke until April went on a quest to find out for herself. "And that's what I want to change. What I need to change. I can't hide something like this from him. But I can't tell him either. He'll think I'm crazy, or that I've watched too many movies, or he'll think he's being manipulated."

"I love my brother. But he can be an idiot," Liz said with all the sisterly wisdom in the world. "So, how're you going to drop a 7-year-old in his lap?"

* * *

That was a very good question. A-plus, would get you the best grade in class if only Lorelai could figure out the answer.

The first step, she decided, was to get the lay of the land. She left cash for her bill with Liz and slipped out the back door, not wanting to see the concern in anyone's eyes — especially Luke's. Her resolve around him was dangerously close to the breaking point already, which was not good considering he had no clue how she felt about him. Besides, her role in the past wasn't to try to hook up earlier with him. It was to reunite him with his daughter.

Lorelai headed into Woodbridge, searching in the area of town where she remembered Anna's store being. And there it was, sitting just off the edge of the square. And out front …

Her throat closed.

There _she_ was.

April Nardini had set up a lemonade stand outside the store, eagerly chatting to townsfolk the way Rory would have at the same age. At first glance, she didn't resemble her birth father at all. But once you knew what to look for, you could see Luke in April. It was the way she tilted her head, the stubborn look she got from time to time, the shape of her eyes. Here she was, so much smaller now. Just a little girl who had no idea that she had a father just miles down the road who would love her the instant he found out about her.

Rage toward Anna bubbled, and not for the first time. Lorelai could never understand why Anna refused to tell Luke about April. Sure, he had griped about kids in the past, but he adored Rory and Lane, taking both girls under his wing. He'd been a decent guardian to Jess in the other timeline and seemed to have an extremely active role in his life in this one.

One thing had remained constant between the timelines: Luke had no idea he had a daughter. April had no idea of the man her father was. That was going to change.

But not this second.

Reluctantly, Lorelai turned back toward Stars Hollow, an idea starting to form. She needed to get Luke and April in the same place and get him to connect the dots. It would take a few days to get everything situated, but if luck was on her side, she could have Luke and April together no later than Thanksgiving. Satisfied, Lorelai drove back to the inn to do a quick inventory of furniture that needed replacing.

* * *

By the time Rory got home from seeing Lane after school, Lorelai's plan was fully formed. She set it into motion by cheerfully telling Rory all about the furniture she planned to update at the Independence Inn, and how she found this darling store in Woodbridge. Of course, it was all too big for the Jeep, but surely some convenient diner owner with a truck could help her out.

Rory absently poked her chopsticks in her carton of takeout Chinese. At least they thought it was Chinese this week. Al was experimenting with fusion cuisine again. It lent a surprise effect to their meals. "Mom?"

"Yeah, sweets?"

"I thought you were interested in Mr. Medina. You were saying how long it's been, how all the necessary parts were dried up from disuse, and you were looking forward to going on a date."

Lorelai nearly dropped what she thought was dim sum. Or perhaps it was chicken parmesan. _Max_. She had forgotten about him other than to briefly dismiss him, or any other man she had dated, as a romantic possibility. Her heart and her mind wanted Luke. It was always supposed to be Luke, and every relationship she stumbled through had been toward the one she had with him - until they managed to spectacularly ruin it.

 _But you may not get another chance with him anyhow_ , her brain reminded her.

Brains were garbage.

Despite the immense Jenga-style odds against her, she couldn't seem to muster interest in Max. Who could blame Rory? While Lorelai's relationship with Max had been years in the past for her, for her daughter it was happening right now. If Lorelai had her dates correct, Rory was right. She literally had just gushed about how attracted she was to Max, how their first date had been aborted because of Babette's cat's funeral.

She had also promised Rory not to keep any secrets from her ever again. Well, fudge.

As far as Lorelai could tell, she had never gotten to that aborted first date. Her time warp happened at just the right time as far as that was concerned.

"I changed my mind," she explained. "It happens. I know it had been a long time since I felt any sort of interest, but I thought it over in the past few days and decided I'm really not comfortable dating your teacher." There. It was even the truth. Some aspect of that had always bothered Lorelai. "He's not causing any issues with you, is he?"

"Oh, no, no. I'm just making sure." Rory didn't bother to hide her relief, and Lorelai felt a twinge of guilt at the awkwardness that she had made her go through in the other timeline after she broke off the engagement with Max. At least this time, hopefully, she would avoid that. "You won't change your mind back, right?"

"Doubt it, kid." Nope, her heart was firmly attached to a clueless guy who could give Paul Bunyan a run for Flannel King of the Year. It was probably not a good time to let Rory know that. She caught herself about to ask about Dean again, then decided to test her new-found knowledge from Liz. "How's Jess?"

"He's good. I keep telling him that Dean Forester's not interested in him, but he'll learn the hard way." Rory lifted something green out of her takeout box with her chopsticks. "What sort of vegetable is this?"

Lorelai choked on a bite of dim sum chicken parmesan. She lunged for her water and gulped. "Jess is _gay_?"

Rory glanced over, and she redirected the baffled expression she had for the vegetable at Lorelai herself. "You and his mom were the ones who insisted on throwing him a coming out party, remember?" She set her food on the table. "Mom, are you sick? You're forgetting so many things the past couple of days."

"No. No, I'm fine." Lorelai took another swallow of water.

Rory stared. Hard. She had that look in her eye, the one that meant she was trying to puzzle out the great mysteries of the universe. She did it every time she was confronted with a challenge: from speaking her first words, to reading her first book, to picking out a bra for the first time, to conjugating Latin verbs. Now all that focus was on the mystery of her mother. Lorelai hastily shoved another bite of food in her mouth and remembered advice she had gotten a long time ago: never let your kid see you sweat.

"Who was my third grade teacher?" Rory asked.

 _Whew_. Easy. Lorelai relaxed. "Mrs. Henry."

"No, it was Mrs. O'Conner."

 _What?_ Lorelai felt her stomach pitch and quickly abandoned her own dinner before it decided to revisit both of them in a violent manner.

"What was my first word?"

"Book." It was out of her mouth before Lorelai could think of it.

Rory narrowed her eyes. "OK, that one was easy. Tell me about the first time we met Luke, Liz, and Jess."

That piece of vital information Liz hadn't relayed to her. Well, that and Jess being gay. Lorelai was damn well willing to bet her new origin story with the Danes family didn't involve horoscopes or delinquencies or multiple husbands on Liz's part. "It was a long time ago, sweets. It was after Liz and Jess moved back from New York."

"Uh huh," Rory said with great disbelief.

"Oh, I remember when you met Lane!" OK, she was totally bluffing now, but surely things hadn't changed that much other than Luke, Liz, and Jess playing a much bigger role in their lives for the past 14 years.

"I didn't ask about Lane." Rory's annoyance was now palatable, but it was something Lorelai had grown used to in the other timeline. They had clashed a lot more as Rory had gotten older, especially after she slept with Dean then began dating Logan. Their epic half-year split was still a painfully fresh memory. "When did you come from?"

"1968." Lorelai started to gather the leftovers together to chuck into the refrigerator. She wondered if Rory could hear her heart slamming against her chest. Maybe she would keel over from a heart attack. That would effectively put an end to the discussion. It would also most likely put an end to her coffee consumption, so …

" _When did you come from?_ " Rory's suspicion was a living being now, a nightmare monster haunting the kitchen. She pointed to Lorelai's left hand. "Mom, your ring finger looks like there was a ring on it not too far in the distant past."

Shit, shit, _shit_. This was going from bad to worst faster than _Speed 2_ had run off the rails. "All right, bedtime! It's 7:06, and I'm exhausted." Lorelai leaped to her feet, every instinct telling her to run, find a distraction, make sure Rory didn't connect the dots.

"Mom! There's a purse in your room I'd never seen before with books that were published five years in the future. You're acting funny, and I know Liz and Miss Patty know whatever it is." Rory shoved her chair back as well. "You just promised me that you would never keep secrets from me again, and you're already breaking it!"

"Oh, yeah? What about you kissing Dean and stealing cornstarch?" Lorelai very nearly slapped her hand over her mouth.

Rory's jaw dropped. "You're not supposed to know about that! And I went back and paid for it!"

"You're not supposed to know about _this!"_

"Then answer my question! _When did you come from?_ " Rory's eyes shimmered with tears. "I thought you were my best friend!" she yelled, then ran for her room.

Lorelai flinched as the door slammed behind Rory. Nausea churned in her gut as she stared down the short hall. She had vowed to herself after their massive fight in the other timeline that she would never do anything like that with Rory ever again. The sheer fact she leaped back in time could be a wedge that could drive her and her daughter apart.

Because Rory would not stop unless she knew the truth.


	4. The Second Hand Unwinds

_Chapter 4: The Second Hand Unwinds_

"And how is the Great Gilmore Standoff?" Luke asked.

Lorelai sulked into her coffee. "Miserable."

Almost two days had passed since her and Rory's fight, but word spread rapidly around town - the most exciting thing to happen since Milly McMasters lost a bet and streaked across the town square while balancing a half-eaten cherry pie on her head. People weren't used to seeing her and Rory be at odds with each other. Not yet in this timeline. The Gilmores were still "freakishly linked" in their eyes.

Except were they? They weren't growing together now. Physically Lorelai was once again 32, but her brain was 38. She had seen Rory graduate high school then do things she never thought her little girl would do. Now they were back at the beginning, years away from going on a boat-stealing spree. Years before Rory decided that sleeping with a still-married Dean was a _really_ good idea. Lorelai wanted to hurl herself in front of Rory, keep her away from Dean and from that future heartache.

At least there was no Jess as a romantic interest in this timeline. Maybe that alone would change things just enough to send Rory down a better path.

Lorelai absently pushed her eggs around her plate. Their fight had happened on Friday, and it had distracted her to the point she knew she was forgetting something. She chalked it up to time travel displacement. Rory had spent all of Saturday out of the house, and she knew Luke fed her at least one meal without charging her. "Tell me how much I owe for whatever you fed Rory yesterday."

"Don't worry about it." He stood at the counter going over order tickets, tall and comforting and not mad at her. Lorelai could still barely wrap her mind around the concept.

Luke looked up from his work. Something must have shown in her eyes, because he refilled her coffee mug without a lecture. "It'll be OK."

Lorelai shook her head. "I am keeping a secret from Rory, a major one." _And you._

Someone called Luke over, and while he was gone, Lorelai made herself finish the rest of her food and decided to wallow just a bit in her memories. Back when things were still good between them, he had started taking Sundays off after she convinced him of the benefits of having a day off a week. Those benefits involved sheer lingerie, lengthy breakfasts, and other wicked delights that would make those spending Sundays in church clutch their pearls. She smiled wistfully at him and slid off her stool. At the last second, she remembered to pay for her meal. He had made her stop paying shortly after they started dating.

She slid a $10 under her plate and was heading for the door when he came upon her, bearing plates. He frowned down at her, then jerked his head toward the curtain. Puzzled, she followed him into the storeroom. "Wait here," he told her before heading into the kitchen to drop off his load.

Lorelai tried not to think of the times they ducked into this room to make out among the pickles.

Luke came back in, wiping his hands on a towel. He closed the door until only a sliver of light remained, ensuring their privacy. He leaned back against the wall, staring at her until she nearly squirmed. Or lunged at him. Both were equal possibilities at the moment.

"Something's wrong with you," he observed.

It was the same sort of observation he would have made before, except out in the dining area. Why did he bring her back here?

He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the floor for a moment before huffing a breath. "Look, I know things have been sorta weird with us the past year and a half or so."

"What?" Oh great. She'd manage to piss off Luke in _this_ timeline as well. Were they just doomed to have epic blowouts with each other in every reality?

"Rachel was your friend, and us calling off the wedding caused issues for you at the inn. Even though everything turned out OK, I get that you probably hated me for awhile."

Lorelai just gaped at him. _I was friends with Rachel? You were engaged? You were getting married at the inn?_

"But you know if you ever need anything, you can come to me. If you're in trouble, I'll help you out." Luke gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze and turned to leave.

"I don't hate you!" The words burst out before she could think about them. But she absolutely, could not let him take another step thinking that she hated him when it was anything but. Even at the very end of their engagement. "I can't hate you."

Luke froze, and she could tell her words had stunned him.

Lorelai felt the tears struggling to break free, and her mind suddenly whisked her away. All she could see was the look of shock and utter loathing on his face when she told him what she had done with Chris. "I always thought you hated me." _Even if you did love me at some point._

"Hey." He waited until she met his gaze, halfway expecting to suddenly be back in 2006. But she was still in 2000, and he was still confused. "Listen. I've never hated you. What the hell made you think I did?"

She shook her head. There was no way she was telling him about the laundry list of things she'd done over the years to piss him off, to make him so angry at her that they didn't speak for weeks. Hell, months. She had time traveled back to the past with him still furious and hurt at her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, knowing that he would have no clue that she was apologizing for everything that had happened between them in a time he knew nothing about. An apology she needed to give him, but he had been too angry to even let her try.

"You're crazy," he said with affection, and she laughed.

When he smiled at her, pleased to see her laughing, Lorelai blinked. She had to blink, because otherwise she would do something insane and timeline altering. Like kiss him. So she really couldn't look at his lips, because it had the side effect of remembering what it was like to kiss him. She _missed_ kissing him, especially in the waning days of their engagement when the strain between them had grown too much. She loved kissing him in the way Nancy Kerrigan had loved ice skating. Nancy had gotten clubbed in the knee for real, and she'd been clubbed in the knee metaphorically, so it was a decent comparison.

She looked in his eyes instead of at his lips, and she saw the uncertainty and the passion he'd banked for years and years in her original timeline. Which meant he had banked it for years and years here too. But she couldn't do anything because what if it changed-

Luke initiated the kiss. One second, she could barely breathe, and the second they were kissing. Hesitant at first in this timeline, not angry since they hadn't been bickering like in front of the Dragonfly. He wasn't desperate to prove this connection to her, because she already knew it. This time, it was like coming home.

So she wrapped her arms around him, kicked caution and timelines out to the dumpster, and just sank into him. She would blissfully live here forever, steeped in all the love she still held for him after everything that happened. When he took the kiss deeper, she worked her hands beneath the loose tails of his flannel to sink her fingers into his denim-covered ass. His hips surged into her, and she could feel him growing hard against her thigh.

She thanked every deity there was that she wore a skirt that day.

She was about five seconds away from yanking up said skirt when a clash of dishes from the dining room caused them to break the kiss. They leaped apart, and she nearly plastered herself against the wall.

 _Oh god, what have I done?_

Luke turned away from her, and she could see him collecting himself. He turned back to her, shirt now buttoned and covering what needed to be covered so he could walk out the storeroom without Miss Patty and Babette swooning from utter joy. "I need to-" he said, awkwardly gesturing beyond the curtain, where voices grew in an alarming jumble.

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Stay back here as long as you need to."

"OK."

He just gazed at her for several seconds, almost as if he didn't want to tear his eyes away. Then another crash sounded and something that sounded suspiciously like a splat was heard. With a groan, he shoved back into the main room. "What the hell is going on in here?" he yelled. "Why is there pie on my ceiling?"

 _Oh God. Oh God, Oh God, Ohgodohgodohgodohgod._ Lorelai sank onto an overturned milk crate, unable to stand. Unable to think.

First Rory. Now this. All within four days of time traveling to the past to fix everything. Had she ruined it all?

* * *

Liz had a small storefront where she sold jewelry and other crafts she dabbled with in her spare time. It was where one of the many porcelain plate stores had been in her own time, at the other end of the block from the diner. Lorelai would like to say she walked there in a dignified manner, but really she bowled over three tourists as she tore down the sidewalk as fast as her 3-inch heels allowed her. She tossed apologies over her shoulder: to the tourists, a lamp post, the mailbox, and an errant receipt on the sidewalk that escaped the eagle eyes of Taylor Doose.

She burst into the store, barely taking in the airy front room that contained merchandise. Liz turned from where she was arranging something on the shelf, took one look at Lorelai, then moved past her to put up a "closed" sign. "So, I can offer you coffee, but you look like you need wine."

"God. Yes. Can I just skip straight to tequila shots?"

Five minutes later, Lorelai found herself on a comfortable sofa in Liz's workroom, a martini in hand as Liz poured herself a glass of wine. Lunch of champions. She took a fortifying sip and decided to ease into the conversation.

"How long have I been in love with Luke in this timeline?"

Or just leap in with both feet and arms.

Liz laughed and sat next to Lorelai. "I think the better question is when weren't you in love with him? Think you fell in love with him the first time you two met. Dr. Peterson's office back in '87. You threw up all over his jeans and shoes because you'd caught the same bug Rory had. He was there with Jess, who had already puked on his shirt. He wound up wearing hospital scrubs back to the house because between the two of you, his clothes were so ruined that he was practically a biohazard. But, my brother made sure you and Rory got home because you were in no condition to drive."

Oh, so _that_ was the story Rory was referring to. Yeah, she would be halfway in love with Luke for him being … well … _Luke_.

Lorelai gulped down another large swallow of martini, deciding that pacing herself could come another day. She would call into work tomorrow and deal with the hangover. She had enough days off banked that she and Rory could tour Europe for months and not use it all. Feeling slightly more steady, she drew in a deep breath. "Please, please, tell me about Rachel."

Liz frowned, and Lorelai wondered if she was violating another time travel rule. Hell, at this point, what was one more in the grand scheme of things? "You didn't know her in your time?"

"Just a little bit." Lorelai summarized Rachel's brief appearance in their lives the spring of Rory's sophomore year of high school, editing out how the revival of the Luke-Rachel Show caused her to seek out Max. "I always liked her," she admitted. Unlike Nicole. Or Anna. Especially Anna.

"You two are pretty tight now," Liz told her. "So, yeah, you're going to be foundering there a bit. They dated a long time, a real long time. They were high school sweethearts and stayed together until after our dad died. But they were growing apart. Rachel had gone to UConn, but Luke stayed here to help our dad. He did manage to finish college though. The same community college you go to in Hartford. Actually the same business degree."

Lorelai wracked her brain and realized she never even asked Luke in the other timeline if he had gone to college. He'd always been a huge advocate of Rory and Jess completing their educations, and he had started a savings account for April by the end of their engagement. He mentioned taking classes a couple times, but she hadn't paid attention. "I don't even know if he went in my time."

"Probably not. He only kept going because I was here to help. But anyhow, Rachel wanted to travel for her career and he didn't. She ended the relationship, and even though she tried to do it easy, it wasn't. You know?"

"I know." From what she knew, it had been the same in her time.

"So Rachel was gone for about … six years? She came back right around the time you moved into the house. She expected to pick up right where she left off, and considering that some brothers of mine hadn't made a move in that time, he just went along with it."

"Luke had girlfriends while Rachel was gone," Lorelai pointed out. Examples A-Z: the existence of April Nardini.

"Yeah, but none of them stuck. Either didn't like the town, didn't like his job, didn't like me or Jess, or it just fizzled out." Liz shrugged. "It was the same way for me, except I've got a kid. You know how that one goes."

"All too well." Lorelai toasted Liz and downed the last of her martini.

Liz, bless her, made her another. "So they decided to get married. Mia gifted them with use of the inn for the wedding … and with you. Your first wedding planning gig."

Lorelai forgot all about the martini.

"Now, see, my brother and Rachel loved each other. But some time in the past few years, I suspected he wasn't _in_ love with her. He was content to go along because he thought the one person he actually wanted wasn't interested."

History, Lorelai decided, was like a washing machine stuck on spin cycle: the same thing happening time after time again, just seemingly faster each time. Or maybe it was the martini getting to her.

"You three were having a blast planning the wedding, but there was something about it that made Rachel realize that the marriage wasn't going to work out. So she broke off the engagement and took another field assignment. It wasn't anything like the first breakup, and I think everyone involved was relieved. Except you. You were pretty upset because you thought it was your fault. Your first wedding and the bride and groom broke up before the big day."

Lorelai _knew_ this was leading up to something. She set the martini aside.

"Everything had been booked, but Luke told you to keep the date and don't cancel anything. He disappeared that morning. I thought you were gonna murder him. So was I. It was last May, right when Rory was graduating middle school. All of a sudden, these kids began to show up - all of Rory and Jess's friends from the school. We were trying to figure it out when my brother showed with Lane. He'd been trying to talk Mrs. Kim into letting her go. He explained that he was giving everything to Rory, Jess, and Lane so they could celebrate their graduation from middle school with a big party."

Lorelai swiftly pieced it together. "Rory was devouring the Sweet Valley and Baby-Sitters Club books back then, because Lane was also reading them. We hid the books at our house so Mrs. Kim wouldn't find them. Those books were huge into those celebrations."

Liz nodded. "He'd gone to the school with the idea, and they loved it - especially since they didn't have to pay for anything. The school told the parents. It turned out to be a really rocking time. The kids loved it. So did the parents. This year, the parents banded together to do it again, but I know Luke donated money to it."

Tears burned in the back of Lorelai's eyes. He'd given his canceled wedding to Rory, to help her live out one of her book fantasies. She sucked in a breath. It caught on a sob.

"Oh, honey, drink your martini." Liz pressed the glass back into her hand.

"He made me a chuppah," Lorelai sobbed. "He hand-carved the thing, even though I was marrying someone else. He made me an ice-skating rink when I was having a fight with snow. He made mashed potatoes for a week when Rory had the chicken pox and refused eat anything else. He hauled mattresses for Rory into her college dorm and out of it and into it again. He taught me to fish, even though I was using the knowledge to date someone else. He gave me $30,000 so I could realize my dream and …"

"You love him just as much," Liz said quietly.

Lorelai nodded through her tears. Then she decided, to hell with it, everything else in this timeline was already borked. She told Liz everything: about the fight with Rory after she and Logan stole the boat, about how Luke didn't tell her for two months how he had a daughter, how that incident started the ball rolling that had blown up into the end of their relationship.

She confessed about sleeping with Christopher the night she broke the engagement off.

By the time they finished, Lorelai was on her fourth martini and Liz on her third glass of wine. Liz had moved to a large recliner and kicked back. Lorelai was sprawled on the couch, staring at the ceiling. "I don't blame you if you want to kick me out."

"Nah. I've done stupid shit like that." Liz saluted Lorelai with her wine glass. "Especially in my original timeline. Besides, you're so stupid in love with my brother, I can tell it was a mistake. He was being an ass."

"So was I," Lorelai admitted. She sighed and let her mind drift in a pleasant alcohol-induced haze.

"He was being a worse ass. I'm his sister. I know these things."

"I did the bigger asshole move in the end. But I'm gonna fix it. I'm gonna get him and April together, and he'll know his daughter now. I'm gonna do one thing right here." She turned her head to Liz. "I think Rory knows."

"Oh. Well. Shit."

Exactly, Lorelai thought.


End file.
